Category Archives: Humor

Precious Things

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Precious Things

When lucky heirs received the shipment of their auntie’s things,
full of photos, pots and pans, old hats and silver rings,
mismatched shoes, a wash tub and an armchair that was armless,
a flintlock rifle that was jammed, ammunition-less and harmless,
they fondly combed the contents of her varied life—
her times as daughter, student, lover, wanderer and wife.
Her time spent in the orchestra, the years that she just wandered,
gypsy skirts and cowboys boots and bride’s dress that she laundered
years ago, then paper-wrapped and carefully put away
high up in a cupboard, just in case one day
one of her sister’s children was in much duress
searching for a favorite vintage wedding dress.
Boxes full of letters, old toys and souvenirs—
all of life’s remainders collected through the years.
What are they to do with these reminders of her living—
memorabilia of her life she took such joy in giving?
Call the second hand store to pick up the armless chair,
the tables and and sofas and all the kitchenware.
Pack away the photos and the eyeless teddybear
and put them in the storage space beneath the lowest stair
along with all their own stuff that they can’t throw away
so they can pass it on to their own kids some future day.

Prompts today are lucky, shipment, orchestra, heir and harmless.

Kids’ Fashion

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Kids’ Fashion

Ribbons and laces
and scrubbed shiny faces
are often conducive
to acts most abusive
by children who gad
in areas bad
that create messes
of fancy new dresses,
for puddles in paths
and gooey mud baths
wreak havoc, at best
on kids fancily dressed.

 

Prompts for today are children,  fancy, gad, ribbon and conducive.

The Building of a Legend

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The Building of a Legend

When there’s an event that attracts attention
worthy of notice and worthy of mention,
no matter how silly or boring or gory,
it’s a regional custom to concoct a story
that exceeds pure fact and creates a tale
with additional details added without fail
that with the recital of each new re-teller
becomes much more luminous, sadder or sweller
than at the last telling and so to the credit
of the last person who heard and resaid it,
it reflects the memory and education,
the sense of humor and imagination
of each one who passes the story along
as anecdote, joke or novel or song.
Thus are legends made of the simplest act
by using our fancy to swell out pure fact.

\

 

Today’s prompt words are credit, regional, luminous, exceed and story.Image by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash.

Open Range

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Open Range

Most cowboys are beef-witted. They ride the open range
decrying life in cities, avoiding any change.

They scan the far horizon to detect changes in the weather—
rain or hail or funnel clouds and speculating whether

to move the herd to shelter, making noises that will soothe them,
wondering if moves down towards the south draw might behoove them.

Their horses part the tall grass like a boat might part the sea.
Their lives out in the open are kitchen and bathroom-free.

They cook over a campfire and when it’s time to pee,
they mosey over yonder where no one else can see.

Prompt words for today are: bathroom, speculating, beef-witted,  noises  and   boat,

 

I decry the usual definition of beef-witted and hereby expand its definition. I’m presently in South Dakota at my town and school reunion. Plenty of cowboys here and in fact I took this photo a number of years ago on main street  at another town reunion.

Nuptial Turnabout

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Nuptial Turnabout

The blushing bride’s the instigator of a lot of fun,
and she will have her victory before the day is done.

She’ll outfox her friends and kin with a turnabout,
completing her last antic as the wedding bells peal out.

Trust her to do her business as the  rice is thrown,
for in the deep folds of her dress, she has brought her own.

She’ll reach into her pockets to withdraw a sack
and as they they run through showers of rice, she’ll send a shower back!

Prompts for the day are: outfox, trust, business, bride and instigator. Image by Hermes  Rivera on Unsplash.

Writer Wannabe

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Writer Wannabe

I wish I were prolific and could elevate each word 
from general to specific, to astounding from absurd.
As they are ejected from my fingers or my pen,
I wish that they were more profound, more thoughtful and more Zen.
But, alas, their attributes remain to me mysterious.
They verge on the inane when my intent was to be serious.

 

Prompt words today are prolific, elevate, attribute, eject and mystery.

Easy Love Affair

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Easy Love Affair

When I’m atop my sweetheart, everything’s sublime.
My time with her is perfect every single time.

Once I had a sampling of everything she does,
no other loved one of her kind could satisfy because

I needn’t be too active, for she does all the work.
She is not loud or vulgar. She does not yank or jerk.

If you would like to see me put her through her courses,
come out to my stable, for there are lots more horses!!!

 

Prompt words today are  atop, sample, sweetheart, loud and active. Image is a detail from a photo by Sebastian Hermann on Unsplash.

Broadband Controversy

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Broadband Controversy

When he formed his “Broadband,” he wanted them all girly:
ruffles and boutique lace, and he wanted their hair curly.
But I fear that what he named them is a bit passé,
for no one ever calls a girl a “broad” today.

Still, he liked the name and said he would not cave
and make use of modern lingo, so the name he gave
remained in use as east and west they traveled on their tours.
Those shiny broads continued their bills and coos and purrs,

bravely enduring catcalls and pickets from their sisters
who proclaimed real women did not cave in to misters
who use insulting language like battle-ax, broad and bitch,
bimbo, bird and arm-candy, sheila, chick and witch.

An “all-girl” band’s acceptable, at least was in the past,
but women’s lib participants hope this band will not last.
Their music’s great and expressed according to their nature.
Too bad a guy decided on their clothes and nomenclature.

 

Prompts for today are shine, broadband, boutique, east and brave. Image by Zoriana Stakhniv on Unsplash.

A Canine Lover’s Creed

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A Canine Lover’s Creed

My love is ambidextrous, dispensed by either hand,
dished out in two varieties: dried kibble or in canned.
Bestowed in pats and scratchings on tummies or on ears,
never controversial and never in arrears.

I am love’s first ambassador, affection’s main dispenser.
No love is deeper, wider, or more heartfelt or denser.
Whether sleeping, eating, playing or in any other guise,
I admire thee from wagging tail to thy chalcedony eyes.

I promise to protect thee from draft or snow or rain,
to deliver thee from hunger, thirst, distress and pain.
I’ll be grateful acceptor of your leaps and licks and chewings,
of all your puppy excesses and your destructive doings.

All that I ask you in return is that you love me, too,
and express that love by going outside to pee and poo!!!!

Prompt words are chalcedony, ambidextrous, ambassador, draft and controversial.

2022
Then his shoe
Caught in the act
Distracting the Masseur
No respect for mone
Bye-bye Forgottenman’s childhood photo

Click on photos to enlarge.

Expired!!!!

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Forgottenman said I have to write a birthday poem, so here it is:


Expired

I will not curb my inhibitions, and so I will not sail
off on new adventures out beyond the pale.
That powerful compunction to be off on an adventure,
ever after, I declare to have my sincere censure.

Apathy is my new creed. I simply do not care
to meet with any challenges or answer any dare.
I’ll gaze upon my garden and watch its petals fall
and when faced with challenges? Reject them one and all.

I’ve officially retired. I’m taking up TV.
I’ll sit here eating popcorn, a cat upon my knee.
I’ll make up for a lifetime of my lack of viewing
and rail against what all the youngsters of today are doing.

I’m done with being active and current and involved.
I’ve lost my former need for being current and evolved.
Forget that I exist and let me moulder in my den.
I’m both used up and giving up on all that I have been.

Three-quarters of a century’s enough for being me.
Now I will investigate what else there is to be.
I’ll expire before the date that I am due for expiration,
and simply coast along for the rest of my duration.

(Don’t worry. It is meant tongue-in-cheek.)

Prompt words today are sail, apathy, powerful, suppress and petals.